Most consistent surf in Australia

@velocityjohnno

What area did you live?

That coast is chockers full of reefs of varying quality, but it's just so rare to get a proper swell with an offshore and often only last hours, rare to get good waves two days in a row.

Based out of Wynyard, working the whole north west. Loved the area, if it had consistent waves... a beer up on Table Cape at sunset is epic

Cool that's where i lived for about 5 years through my late teens loved the local reefs when they did break on those very rare days a year two or three can get really good, but I use to surf that whole coast from Devonport to Sister Beach and go down to Marrawah on weekends or even after school in summer.

Yeah its a beautiful area, great people too, most of my best friends come from the area (a few still live down Sisters beach area), just a pity it doesn't get swell.

Yeh indo, gunna about the same as woolies. Spudups, MP gets too much swell for most of the setups there outside of WP anyway as it is (but certainly would be nice if WP was the same size as surf coast in winter!)

Having grown up in Perth it’s got my vote as the least consistent surfable coastline in Australia. The most average days in the MP/island are still better than some of the best days mid-winter Perth and would be less than a foot for around 8 months a year

@velocityjohnno

Sorry for the quality of pics, but two of my fav waves on the local reefs, these two waves are separated by a channel, if you have surfed them you will know the spot (but my fav one none of these pics is a very hollow left and right that is a long walk out on reef then a very long paddle out)

Hopefully no one living there gets upset with me posting these pics, but unless you live there and are onto it you would never see them break, rare as hens teeth.

Is it true that Perth has one of the best waves in all WA? Well, it's a bit offshore.

Not the one I'm thinking of (wrong direction), but not bad. Heavy locals, hey?

Ah right, I had my wires crossed. It does get swell after all.

@Spuddups

Yeah it's just the waves in Westerport Bay that have a reputation as being fickle and soft, as it needs big swells to get proper waves in there and even at 3ft some can be quite soft as swells feel the bottom a lot before they break.

It's a really nice area though on land and the water and some of the waves are real nice setups and even have quite good shape, i use to love going over there as a grommet awesome waves for a grommets or old cruisers.

Crowds are ridiculous these days though.

Hey Indo, yes I know that first pic from when I was there. Forgot to mention how much the tidal variation there spun me out, coming over from WA. I'm a bit more used to it now, being in the Strait. The amount of reef that would get exposed was something new.

Being employed to work at rural sites all over Tassie, I also got to recon the eastern side of the north coast, and there were some setups, and you never knew, but sometimes they'd get a bit of fetch from the westerlies. Also was sent into Flinders, King, Cape Barren for work so kept looking for surf. It was an epic job.

Geek agree on the beginning surfing in Perth bit, never did the outer reefs tho, scary size fish you have there Facto. Funny thing is, when I go back to see family & firends I actually get really frothing to surf the old spots we used to on the metro coast, trying to be there autumn/winter and we seem to find head+ high days and a bit of shape.

Cool, yeah use to do trips over Tamoshanter in winter when it often blew straight westerly, it would be half a foot around Burnie area then you would get down there and it would often be solid 2 to 3 ft with but bigger days.

Use to camp on the point, and we would have a fire going almost 24/7 in this little hut on the point over looking the wave where we would defrost between surfs.

Never got to King Island or Flinders but i have mates on both islands that surf.

I heard bundaberg has a couple of good waves but only swell about two to three days a year is probably the least consistent area in Australia
SW WA is pretty consistent and there's waves offshore in southerlies especially around dunsbourough (spelling)

sypkan wrote:

god's own country...

speaking of surf forcasts, and mockeries, anyone wanna guess why indo surf forcasts are so shit ...like way off shit, on marginal days...

I asked Prof of Oceanography Qld Uni this exact question, he is an avid surfer and spent time in Indo.

His answer:

1: lack of REAL way bouys in the Indian Ocean
2: lack of historical inshore swell data
3: no modelling of inshore coastal topography
4: not taking into consideration the tidal effect on inshore swell movement

Item 4 has an extreme effect when the swell size and direction are not optimal.

Though this question was directly related to the South Sumatra Coast he assured me it was the same situation for most of the Indo coast.

For anyone that has surfed and lived on the West, South and East coasts of Australia for any length of time the answer is depressing but known.

There is no consistent surf location in Australia ... a harsh, depressing but correct assessment I think.

Of course if size and quality is of no concern then the Aussie coast is pumping.

interesting list kopihitam, not least no. 4, those islands most certainly do have some tidal quirks, combined with the others, especially no. 3, it makes a lot of sense.

...though my pondering was after watching over a week of totally overforcasted uluwatu, only to see a good 3-4 foot day totally missed. I would have thought these little phenomena would be much easier to pinpoint...

no doubt your little south sumatra query was fuelled by the old... small point, small krui / massive point, still surprisingly disapointingly small krui conundrun / moderate point, good krui conundrum.., which I would also have thought would be easier to pinpoint and explain, but seems no...

funny place that coast, especially considering it doesn't have the variability like mentawais etc. that make that 4 point list a good explanation, heard some good gurus have a good go, ...only to be proven wrong... well, wrongish...

So u think South Sumatra is more consistent than Southern Australia?

Any evidence to support this?Besides the opinion of your uni prof.

@troppo , I would say both coasts have consistent swell activity but south sumartra would probably have better conditions for rideable waves overall , don’t have any links to back my claims, it’s just an opinion.

Im really surprised he put number 4 as such a factor in south Sumatra, it's one of the most open standard type coast in Indo where most waves dont even need to bend and refract into spots much.

If it's a factor there it's going to be a even bigger factor in areas with lots of islands with tides pulling between them where swells need to refract and bend all over the place, places like Banyaks, Telos, Mentawai's and then waves near strong tidal flows between islands like lombok & Sumbawa etc